Increasingly, students and academics are being required to write in an ‘interdisciplinary’ way, If this is something you have been specifically asked to do, or are simply interested in, then read on! If not, then please feel free to move to the next page.

What is interdisciplinary writing?

Interdisciplinary writing means bringing together two or more disciplines to help answer a complex question, solve a messy problem, generate new knowledge, develop a new perspective or offer a more holistic understanding of a topic. If you are a Liberal Arts Natural Sciences student you are likely to encounter this frequently on your course. However, in other subject areas you may be asked to integrate or bring different disciplines together as part of your studies.

When writing in an interdisciplinary way, many of the same principles of academic writing already discussed in this course apply, including use of clear overall and paragraph structure, writing clearly and concisely and engaging effectively with evidence. However, there are a few additional aspects of writing it is important to consider too:

Defining the need for an interdisciplinary approach

In your introduction you will often be expected to justify why you are using an interdisciplinary approach in response to a particular question or task. For example:

Why is an interdisciplinary approach necessary here?
What unique value does it bring?
What would be the limitations of using a single discipline approach?
What are the disciplines you will be using?

Defining your aim

Try to define your aim or target clearly in your introduction too. This will then allow you to later clearly demonstrate how your unique interdisciplinary approach is able to satisfy this specific aim. Remember, interdisciplinarity is not the end goal, it’s how you reach your goal.

Remember your multidisciplinary audience

If your writing is bringing together different disciplines, each discipline is targeted at a different audience. It’s unlikely your reader will be an expert in all, or even any, of the disciplines. The way you are using them, in this new interdisciplinary way, may also be very unfamiliar. Therefore, remember to guide them carefully through your thinking and use accessible language so that someone from different disciplines can understand and follow your ideas.

Signposting is crucial

One important way of guiding your reader is to signpost. This might mean guiding them through the structure of the assignment itself through phrases such as ‘however,' 'additionally,' 'in contrast,' 'similarly.’
Equally, in interdisciplinary writing this may involve clearly signalling your intentions to the reader. For example, you may explain to the reader which discipline you’re using, why you’re shifting to a different discipline, and how this helps to advance your argument. Explaining why you are shifting from one disciplinary approach to another is also a helpful way of advancing your own argument. Remember this new interdisciplinary approach and direction is likely to be entirely new and unknown to your reader- help make their life, and understanding, easy!

Reading and engaging with texts

When reading different texts, try to compare and contrast the disciplines used and ask questions such as:
- What are the strengths and limitations of looking at this idea from just this discipline?
- Are there any potential areas for cross-over with other disciplines?
- Could another discipline help to develop this area even further?
To use a very basic example, we may read a textbook about psychology, which focusses on the individual mind. We may then read another book about sociology exploring how different groups in society work together. If we integrated these two approaches, we might be able to develop a fresh understanding of how the individual mind works within those groups.

Demonstrating criticality

Just as with all academic writing, whenever you are using evidence and literature, ensure you always do something with it. This might be evaluating it, comparing it with other evidence, interrogating it, or discussing what its implications are.
You will also need to demonstrate a critical awareness of the different disciplines you are using. What are its strength and limitations in this instance, meaning it cannot individually answer the question?
Avoid making general claims about a discipline, and focus your comments on the way a text is drawing upon a particular discipline.

Finally, always follow your tutor’s guidance. Interdisciplinary writing is a developing and hugely varied area, meaning different tutors may have different ideas and expectations of your assignments in terms of structure, number of disciplines involved and more. Therefore, always follow or seek their specific guidance in the first instance.